A language freak's early years

mlr asks, "What was the order of the languages you studied/picked up/etc.? And what was the impetus for the choice at that particular time?"

I've been putting off answering this because it's big and messy and I don't want the entry to turn out that way, too. But I don't want to put it off forever either, so I'll start babbling and hope for the best.

During her visit this past weekend, my sister reminded me that my very first attempts to learn any foreign language came with the aid of books bought by the pound. You see, the book depository in the small town where we spent some of our tender years had an annual sale of remainders. (My sister says she still has a few volumes on her shelves embossed with a star; I think mine have finally all cycled out and been replaced by better works.) The publisher, Harper & Row, had its own answer to Berlitz in the Cortina Method, so I picked up a stack of them.

I'm think that I had already read Mario Pei's The story of language, which includes very brief sketches of several world languages, but I'm not certain. I do know that, except for when a claque of youngsters my sister was babysitting got into them once, the textbooks languished for a period of years until I got it into my head that I wanted to learn German, probably as a result of a growing interest in family history.

Or did I not start working through Conversational German in 20 Lessons until after I'd already started high school and, thus, my first formal foreign language instruction? See, that's why I put off answering: the more I tried to chronologise things, the less sure I became of what preceded what. In any case, I know my desire to learn German preceded my opportunity to learn anything. Because when I found there was no German course at my college preparatory, I opted for Spanish by virtue of its "practicality".

I was a very naïve language learner at first. I remember distinctly one of my first big boners: I was composing sentences for class. Fortunately I had an excellent teacher who encouraged my efforts to use vocabulary we hadn't learned yet. I wanted to say "his", so I looked in the index and saw it translated as su or sus. Not understanding a thing about Spanish adjective agreement, I thought if his had a final s then its Spanish equivalent should, too, and chose sus.

On the other hand, I also remember that what really tripped me up in German--eventually forcing me to abandon self-instruction--were reflexive verbs. I can't imagine having that much trouble if we'd already covered them in Spanish class, which happened in my first year, so we're back to German first and Spanish second. Whatever the sequence, there you have my first informal effort and my first formal course.

At the same time, I also had a strong interest in the Celtic languages. This was again partly driven by heritage (since my mother's family made much of my Irish great-grandmother), but not entirely because my interest in Welsh soon eclipsed my interest in Irish. Another distinct memory from freshman year is going through the crumbling set of Encyclopaedia Britannica volumes in the dorm lounge and copying out every scrap of Celtic I could find in it, including the Lord's Prayer in Welsh. I did the same thing with the etymologies of Celtic loanwords in the Webster's Third International.

But, again, I was hampered by a lack of opportunities and materials. This was around time, however, when my father discovered David Morgan. Their catalog was an eclectic mix of Welsh flannel, Celtic jewellery, Australian hats, and books, oh the books! How I used to pore through it and dream of the books. I think Teach Yourself Living Welsh arrived on my birthday, but I know that Y Geiriadur Mawr showed up on the Christmas We Got Everything (my parents' overcompensation for their separation in 1987).

What's not in doubt is the hours I spent devouring the lessons in that flimsy paperback book. (Fortunately, by the time it was destroyed completely, I'd already learned how perniciously misleading it was.) Another memory: Walking alone through the neglected eastern edge of Forest Park reciting sentences to myself. It would be another couple of years before I'd actually hear any Welsh spoken or meet another learner of Welsh, much less learn any myself, but that didn't dim my enthusiasm.

I'll wrap up this rambling installment with the last big discovery of my high school period, Korean. I had a nodding acquaintance with it due to a peculiar feature of the Compton's Encyclopedia my parents had bought from a travelling salesman when we still lived in the country. Perhaps as a result of the Korean War, it had a much more comprehensive treatment of Korea than other countries, so this is where I got my first glimpse of Han'geul.

Then at the start of my second year in the dormitory, we got an influx of new foreign students. Four of them were Korean, the sons of engineers working the in Middle East. One of them became my friend, and my pestering questions eventually caused him to nickname me 미국놈 or "Yankee bastard". I went to the public library up the road, found a Korean-English dictionary, and eventually learned what this meant and how to take it apart. When I saw him again, I said, "If 미국 is 'America' and I'm a 미국놈, then you must be a 한국놈." Chagrinned, he said, "No, you can't use it that way."

WotD: a little plot

1. ein Grundstückchen
2. een grondstukje
3. una parcelita
4. una parcel·leta
5. une petite parcelle
6. pâm bach
7. ceapóg
8. działka
9. 작은 밭
10. 小块土地 xiǎokuài tǔdì

Notes: Ceapóg cearbhais [cə'po:g cə'ɾˠu:ʃ] is my favourite phrase in Irish right now. So much so I'm considering planting some caraway out back so I'll have cause to use it for the rest of the year.